Twelfth Night (4/4)
FANDOM: X-Files
SUMMARY: It was only a kiss.
RATING: PG-13 for this part.
SPOILERS: No big spoilers. The story takes place in Season 7, between Millennium and Rush.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me and no copyright infringement is intended on my part.
WORD COUNT: 19,947 for the whole story
DATE POSTED: June-July 2008
Eleventh:
Shrimp sate with peanut sauce, green papaya salad, tom kha gai soup, chicken larb, pad thai, red curry with tofu. He's ordered too much but one thing he knows for certain is the way to Scully's heart is with Thai food.
She opens her door, wearing low-slung, faded jeans and a black v-neck pullover. She's barefoot.
"I thought you might come to the door wrapped in cellophane with a rose between your teeth," he says.
"And hello to you, too, Mulder." She eyes the brown paper bags he's carrying. "What do you have there?"
"Something edible."
"In that case, I'll let you in." She ushers him through the door and leads him to the kitchen.
He starts unpacking the various little boxes. "Thai food, courtesy of Siam Kitchen."
"Mmm, Thai food," she says, pulling plates out of the cabinet. "Love it."
"I know, more than anything."
She leans against the countertop. "Well, not more than anything."
"True. You also love the immortal works of Jane Austen, cutting into dead bodies, heels that make you taller, conspiracy theories about nutrition, obscure foreign films with subtitles, stealing my fries when you think I'm not looking and..."
She clamps her hand around his forearm to shut him up. "And you, of course."
"Of course. I'm an eminently loveable guy." He bats his eyelashes at her.
She ignores him. It's what she does.
In the living room, he opens a bottle of wine and watches as she fusses around, banking the fire, changing the CD on the stereo. He pours Riesling into two wine glasses.
"I don't know, Scully. This scene seems awfully familiar. A fire, mood music, a bottle of wine. Are you sure I'm really myself?"
She has the good grace to laugh. "The difference is that the wine is white this time. It goes better with Asian food." She settles next to him on the couch.
He offers her a pair of the chopsticks that came with the order.
Scully shakes her head. "The Thais don't commonly use chopsticks, except when eating noodles, which they consider Chinese food. Most use a fork to push food into a spoon, and some use their fingers." She picks up a fork.
Her brain is a wondrous place, its attic crammed with obscure facts and figures. They should get into the bar trivia racket. They'd probably make a fortune in prize money
"Then why do Thai places always give out chopsticks?" he asks.
"Because they think that we don't know any better." She makes a disdainful face.
Watching her eat, really eat, not just pick at a salad without dressing or sip some inexplicable beige organic smoothie, is an incredible turn-on. He remembers the Scully of years ago, chomping on barbequed ribs. But he also understands the health kick she's on these days. Her life is precious and she'll do what it takes, short of quitting her perilous job, to preserve it.
Peanut sauce dribbles down her chin and he wipes it away with his fingers, licks them. Her eyes widen and he notices a flush blooming on her upper chest. MSG or arousal?
She sets her plate down. "I think I'm full," she announces.
"You should be. You ate eighty percent of the food." He scrapes the last of the incendiary red curry from his plate with the side of his fork.
Scully clears the dishes to the kitchen and reappears in the living room, looking shy and roguish at the same time. "I'm all sticky. I have curry and peanut sauce up to my elbows. I think I'll take a quick shower."
He settles back on the couch. "Take your time, Scully. The fire is entertainment enough for me."
"I've been thinking about what you said the other night, Mulder. It's important that we start caring about the environment." The blush on her chest deepens.
He's off the couch like he's been shot out of a cannon.
Scully lights a few votive candles and sets them on the sink and turns off the overhead light. She starts the shower and turns to him. He gathers her in his arms, kissing the top of her head like he sometimes did when everything between them was undefined, up for grabs, easily misinterpreted.
"I didn't think I could be happy," he murmurs.
She lifts her face to him. "I know."
He thinks, I hope this grace period can last a while.
He presses her against the windowsill, sinking into her kisses. Her fingers find the fly of his jeans and before long, he feels them sliding to his feet.
"Naked, now," he hears himself saying. When did he get so bossy?
She fluidly removes her top and drapes it on wood bureau she uses for bathroom storage, her jeans the next to go. Her bra is black and lacy, just as he'd dreamed in the past. With one hand, he unhooks it, a trick he learned his senior year in high school after hours of practice with Stacy Evans in her parents' basement. Scully laughs as he dangles the bra on one finger and gives it a jaunty twirl before allowing it to land on the pile of clothes on the bureau. He slides off her panties, their lace matching her bra, and he feels her shiver.
They step into the shower, the hot water raining down on them. She tilts her head back and lets the spray catch her face and hair. He stands back and watches. Naked, wet Scully, wearing nothing but her cross necklace and the mole above her lip. Dreams do come true, once in a while. "I never thought I'd get to see this," he says.
"But you have. Remember the decontamination shower?" Something unreadable passes on her face.
"That was different." It feels like a century ago.
"You were peeking, Mulder." She sneaks around him to give him access to the water.
"Of course I was. I'm only human. But I didn't get to see much. This is much better." He flicks water at her.
She squeezes herbal-scented shower gel in her hands and works up lather. "Yes, it is." She rubs the suds all over his body. His chest, his back, his buttocks, his thighs. He kisses her, hard and long.
His foot suddenly gives way on the bottom of the tub and he has to grab the shower rod to keep from falling.
"Be careful. It's a slippery tub," she says.
Her fingers are slippery, too, as they work their soapy way around his cock and perform the same maddening dance he'd been introduced to the other night in the hotel room.
"You have to stop that," he gasps. "I can't guarantee..."
"Shut up," she says with a smile.
He attempts to distract himself by applying his attention to her breasts, those lovely, wet breasts, the nipples stiffening under his fingers and between his lips. But it's not helpful when she moans, a low moan that sends sparks down his spine. He's heard her moan in pain, in terror, in grief, but her moan of delight is something still new and astonishing to behold.
Abruptly, she removes her hand from him and he stifles a dismayed sound. She reaches around the shower curtain and her hand returns with a bath towel. She folds it and places it on the bottom of the bathtub.
He squints in confusion. What is she doing? Realization dawns on him as she sinks to her knees on the towel.
"My knees aren't what they used to be," she says, blinking innocently.
Oh, God, she's really going to do it, right here in the shower. Scully is much, much naughtier than he ever gave her credit for. In his fantasies, she is often a slightly reluctant partner, shy and having to be coaxed a bit into participating in certain acts.
So much for his fantasies. Reality is infinitely better, he thinks, as she takes him into the warmth of her mouth, her tongue lazily tracing the length of him.
He looks down at her and their eyes meet, blue and hazel. Electric. He almost loses his balance again, his knees turned to jelly. He grips her slippery shoulders to keep steady.
The suction of her mouth, her soft lips wrapped around him, her tongue swirling around the head of his cock, it's all too much. Oh, Scully, I never knew you at all, he thinks. I seriously underestimated you. You're more woman than I could ever have imagined.
When he comes, it's not in shame or in horror, but in utter joy. He grips her shoulders so hard he's probably leaving fingertip bruises.
She rests her head for a moment on his thigh and then lifts it to smile at him. He helps her up from the towel.
He feels light-headed, drained, gone, but he also feels like he's alive for the first time in years.
He kisses her. "I don't know how to thank you."
"Jewelry is always an appropriate thank-you gift. Emeralds go nicely with my hair."
He laughs.
"I feel sufficiently clean," she says. "Perhaps we should find a more comfortable place. My bed, say?"
"You're always thinking, Scully," he says.
She climbs out of the tub and through the gap in the curtain he watches her towel off. He squeezes out the wet towel from the bottom of the tub and hands it to her.
"Are you planning to get out any time soon?" she says, her hands on her hips.
"Just a second. I want to rinse this soap off."
He turns to face the showerhead, sugarplums dancing in his head. He doesn't notice when his foot slips on the porcelain, not until he finds himself falling towards the shower.
This will not end well, he thinks.
His face crashes into the faucet and he comes down hard on one knee. He screams loud enough to be heard in Baltimore.
The shower curtain rings screech across the metal rod. "Mulder, what happened?" he hears her say.
His hands are covering his face. He takes them away only to see them covered with his blood. "I think I fell," he gasps. Fucking hell, it hurts. His forehead, his nose, his knee.
Scully snaps into doctor mode. "Can you get up if I give you a hand?"
He's not sure but he just wants to get the hell out of this tub.
"Carefully," she says, offering her hand. Somehow he manages to climb out with her support and he hobbles to the toilet seat.
Scully carefully dabs at his forehead and nose with a damp washcloth. "You've got a pretty big gash near your hairline," she says. She touches his nose and he yelps. "And you might have broken your nose."
That's all his schnozz needs--a fracture to give it even more character.
She hands him a wad of tissues to catch the blood from his nose and presses the washcloth to his forehead to staunch the bleeding. "I think you're going to need stitches."
He's had enough stitches in his head this year, thank you very much. And no more emergency rooms. It hasn't even been two weeks since his last visit. "Can't you stitch me up?" he asks.
"Mulder, you want me to suture you with my sewing needle?"
"It beats the ER." His nose is throbbing in time to his heartbeat.
"I don't even have a sewing needle, even if I would do such a thing, which I wouldn't. Do you think you can walk?"
He extends his leg. The knee is sore but it doesn't seem like anything serious. He nods.
"Good. Then let's try to get you dressed."
Date night at the Georgetown University Hospital emergency room. He should get one of those punch cards--ten visits to the ER and your eleventh is free.
By the time he hobbles back into the waiting room, an ice pack pressed to his nose, it's past two in the morning. Scully is curled up in a chair, dozing. He hates to wake her, but she's his ride home. He touches her shoulder and she starts awake.
"Mulder. How are you?" She yawns.
He touches the gauze on his forehead. "The bad news is six stitches. The good news is my nose isn't broken and the knee seems fine, just bruised. My basketball career isn't over yet."
She sighs. "I'm so sorry." She's been apologizing all night.
"It's not your fault. Now we know better than to..."
She stands up. There are dark circles under her eyes. "Let's get you home."
By the time they reach his apartment, he's woozy with exhaustion and some Percocet Scully produced from her purse, leftovers from a root canal. The doctor only gave him ibuprofen, which did nothing for the pain. His nose is numb from the ice and he has to breathe through his mouth.
She has to lead him like a stumble drunk up the sidewalk to his building, into the elevator, and down the hallway. He never realized how long that hall was before this, but it's endless.
In his bedroom, she helps him out of his jeans and into bed. His bed, so soft and accommodating. Why does he ever leave it?
"Will you stay with me tonight?" he says, slurring his words.
"Of course." Scully finds one of his t-shirts in his dresser and slips it on, climbs in bed next to him. She turns the lamp off and he's grateful for her warm presence in the dark.
"Ice pack," she reminds him, and places it on his nose. "Are you still in a lot of pain?"
"Not really. I...I feel like I did about a dozen bong hits. We should put some Grateful Dead on."
She laughs, snuggling up to him and stroking his hair. "I hate the Grateful Dead."
"Yeah, you would." He shuts his eyes, imagining multicolored dancing bears.
"Hey, Scully?" he asks.
"Yes?"
"Tell me a bedtime story?"
He hears a soft laugh. "A bedtime story? What kind?"
"Anything. Just a story." He wants to hear the sound of her voice.
She kisses his cheek. Her soft voice floats in the darkness of the room. "Once upon a time, there was a man who believed in aliens. He lived in a dungeon far beneath the earth. One day, a woman came to the dungeon. He thought she was there to debunk his work and betray him to the evil king, but she was really there to rescue him..."
He's asleep before she finishes the sentence.
Twelfth:
He looks like he's been in a bar fight. There's the gauze bandage taped to his forehead and the livid bruises surrounding it. His nose has swollen to Karl Malden proportions. Worse yet, he feels like he's been in a bar fight and the other guy won.
It's impressive what a bathtub spigot can do to a face. Even Alex Krycek has never managed to beat him up this badly.
He limps to the kitchen on his sore knee. He'll need a lot of coffee to be able to dress and drive to the office. He finds that Scully has thoughtfully left him a half a pot of coffee. A yellow Post-It note is stuck to the top of the Mr. Coffee. It reads: "Don't even think about it, Mulder."
He finds his cell phone in the living room. She answers on the third ring, her greeting crisp and professional.
"Don't even think about what?" he asks, all innocence.
"Coming to work."
"I've shown up in much worse shape, Scully."
"Yes, and you were completely useless. So stay home for a day and heal."
He sighs. Does she think that all of a sudden he's turned into a delicate flower? "But--"
"But nothing. This time I'll write the report and swing by tonight for you to take a look at it before we submit it to Skinner."
"Fine, you win."
"I always do." She hangs up the phone as punctuation. He's sure that on the other end, she's smirking in triumph.
It's probably for the best. He can't breathe out of one nostril and his knee is shouting in pain. He pops several Percocet and washes them down with Folger's and toast.
He'll spend the day on the couch. His comfy, trusted couch. He can catch up on his reading. He hasn't read the last few issues of "The Journal of Paranormal Research." The day won't be wasted after all.
Before he has a chance to open the first issue, he's fast asleep.
He dreams that he's walking down the corridors of the Bureau with Scully. They're on their way to meet with Skinner. He notices that for some reason she's wearing a blue bikini with white polka dots, but she doesn't seem to find anything amiss. The top of the bikini has come untied and he worries that the entire top might fall off her body. He wants to tie it the strings for her, but he's afraid she'll get angry at him if he does that. They're partners, friends, but he knows better than to cross the line.
With a start, he wakes to the sound of his front door opening. Where's his gun? He'll shoot the bastard breaking in. He relaxes when he hears high heels on the wood floor. It's Scully.
The sky has gone dark outside the living room window. He must have slept all day. He feels dizzy, sweaty, achy, hungry and cotton-mouthed all at the same time. What an attractive sight he must be.
Scully clicks her way into the living room, wearing a severe gray pantsuit and black heels. Her face softens from its official business mask when she spots him lying on the couch.
"Are you all right?" she asks, bending to kiss him on the top of his head. "I tried calling you a few times but you didn't pick up."
"I think I was sleeping."
"If you're not sure, you must have taken more Percocet. How many did you take?"
"Three, I think."
Her eyebrows arch. "On an empty stomach? No wonder you slept all day."
"I had some toast," he offers.
"I brought dinner," she says. She helps him off the couch.
A pee, a tooth-brushing, and a glass of water later and he's as almost good as new. Actually, he still feels like hammered shit, but at least the hammered shit feels a bit fresher.
Scully's setting out takeout containers on the coffee table. "I got some stuff at Whole Foods," she says.
He sits down, trying not to wince at the stiffness in his knee. "I'm not much of a fan of Whole Foods. I don't like my food to be any more than half."
"There's a red velvet cupcake for you if you're a good boy," she says, offering him a plate with a stuffed chicken breast, roasted potatoes and glazed carrots.
He bites back a ribald comment. With Scully, he has to use such comments sparingly to avoid the dreaded eye-roll.
After they eat, she peels back the bandage on his forehead to peer at his stitches. "Looks good," she comments. "No sign of infection. I'm going to remove this, but don't get the sutures wet."
"But I want to take a shower," he protests. He's actively aware that he smells like he's been stewing in his own juices.
"I would think you'd want to avoid showers for a while." She grins. Scully looks slightly goofy when she shows her teeth while smiling. He loves that.
"I stink, Scully," he says.
"Then take a bath."
"Don't you think baths are kind of girlie?"
"What are you, thirteen? Insecure in your burgeoning masculinity? I'll run a bath for you." She clears the dishes off the table.
Some minutes later, she leads him to the bathroom. It's rainforest steamy from the hot water in the tub.
She kisses him gently, careful to not bump his puffy nose.
"You'd better get out of here," he says. "Danger lurks for us in bathrooms."
"I think we'll be fine. Just watch your feet." She helps him out of his t-shirt.
He steps in the tub with the utmost caution, holding her hand as he sinks into the water.
"Perfect. Now, don't drown," she warns, turning to leave the bathroom.
"Hey, Scully, don't you want to save the Earth again?"
She spins on her heel and eyes the rather small tub. "I believe the probability of further injury would rise exponentially if I got in there with you."
He groans in disappointment.
"But I'll wash your back if you'd like," she offers.
He leans back into the hot water, which soothes his sore muscles. His legs are too long to comfortably fit in the tub, but it still feels good. Scully removes her suit jacket and rolls her blouse up to the elbows.
"What would you do if I splashed you?" he asks.
"Make you pay the dry cleaning bill."
"It's a small price to pay." He splashes her, just a little bit, the water hitting the sleeve of her blouse.
"Mulder, do you want to be washed or not?" She kicks off her pumps and kneels on the bathmat.
He closes his eyes and lets her rub Irish Springs bubbles all over his skin. These are the hands that have shot a gun and cut into the dead. Once, they even caught a baby as it emerged into the world. With him her hands are still strong, but they're tender. They fit perfectly on his body.
Her lips brush his and he opens her mouth to her, to accept her long, slow kisses. When he opens his eyes, she's looking at him and smiling shyly.
If only he could see her smile more often.
Hard times are ahead. He can feel it in his bones like the ache of the ankle he broke as a teenager when it's about to rain. But he doesn't want to dwell on those dark thoughts. Not now. Better they grab some sweetness while they can.
"I think I'm sufficiently clean," he says. "Do you have a Hoyer lift handy get me out of this tub?"
Scully the literalist shakes her head and offers her hand instead. It's enough.
She dries him off and wraps the towel around his waist, fastening it with a neat tuck.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," he says.
"I wonder that myself, Mulder."
She helps him shamble his way to the bedroom, where he crumples on the bed, the towel coming off his body. He watches through half-mast eyes as she unbuttons her blouse and slides it from her body. She wiggles out of her trousers and joins him on the bed, clad only in her white bra and panties.
Her hot breath is on his cheek. "Mulder, do you think...?" Her voice trails off and her eyes shut.
"Do I think what?"
"If we're careful, I mean really careful not to hurt you, do you think we could...?" She takes a deep breath, trailing her fingernails on his arm.
"Make love?" he asks, nerves sparking alive with something other than aches and pains.
Her eyes open and there's mischief in them. "Yes." She kisses him on the cheek with warm lips.
"We can try," he says. "But I'm kind of scared. Bad things seem to happen every time we try. Skinner calls, I come too soon, I become intimately involved with your bathtub faucet..."
Scully laughs. "Or I get stung by a bee. Hell, if we actually do manage to have sex, it'll probably cause colonization."
"There's no one I'd rather be in an alien reeducation camp with than you, Scully."
She straddles his body. "I think that the worst that can happen is we break the bed." She unfastens her bra and lets it fall to the sheets.
"We can only hope," he says, his fingers reacquainting themselves with the curves of her breasts. "Besides, I've been thinking about getting a new bed."
Time shatters into brilliant fragments as they kiss. The faint cinnamon taste of her lipstick. The silk of her breasts against his chest. His cock stiffening in her hand. The curve of her hips under his fingers. He can feel no pain whatsoever.
His fingers make their way to her panties and find her clit under the silky material. She moans in pleasure as he carefully circles it. "Get those damned things off," he mutters.
"They're history," she says, removing them unceremoniously.
There now. Skin to skin. Nothing between them. His heart beats faster.
With a lazy, almost nonchalant motion, she lifts her hips and he feels himself sliding into her, guided by her hand.
Oh.
For perhaps the first time in his life, he's speechless.
She smiles at him. This is it. They're here, finally. It's too much. He shuts his eyes, afraid that if he looks at her, he'll come. He wants this to last forever, this joining with her.
"Squeeze my arm if you get too close," she whispers in his ear. He almost laughs. That's Scully, always with a plan.
Slowly, she begins to move. Fuck coming too soon, he has to see this, the beauty of her face and body as she rocks on him, moving his cock in and out of her depths. Her eyes are half-shut, red-gold lashes fanned. She's biting her lower lip as if she's concentrating on a particularly perplexing piece of evidence.
He gives her arm a squeeze. Scully giggles, a real-life, genuine giggle in bed. He'd gladly endure another six stitches in his forehead to hear that again.
"I just need a second," he gasps.
She kisses him, her hands cupping his face tenderly. "I'm so damn happy," she whispers. He has to grasp the sheets in his sweaty hands to keep himself in check.
Okay, deep breath, he thinks. You can do this, you can maintain your control. Be a Zen monk. Practice the art of detachment from worldly things.
But she's started up again and she's doing some kind of roll and twitch of her hips that might just drive him to the madhouse for a lifetime of snug white jackets and regular doses of Thorazine. All he can do is wrap his arms around her and hang on as she rides him hard. It's not up to him anymore.
"Oh, Mulder," she groans. The cross on her necklace tickles his chest, along with the ends of her hair.
Surely he's dreaming this. Because, really, what has he done to deserve this bliss?
"Oh, Mulder," he hears her say again. Her voice is low and scratchy. "I'm...I'm..." She suddenly stops and her entire body shudders, her muscles tightening around his cock. He can't take his eyes off her; he's afraid to blink and miss a second of this singular experience, watching Scully come.
She takes his hand and places it on her sticky chest. He feels the rapid fluttering of her heartbeat. "This is what you do to me, Mulder," she says.
She raises her hips until only the very tip of him is inside her. She pauses and grins down at him. Tease.
"More," he manages to wheeze.
"So impatient," she says.
And then he's inside her again, buried to the hilt. His brain screams to his nerves: all systems are GO!
He's coming, he's coming inside Scully, and he might actually be seeing the cliched fireworks, brilliantly colored explosions behind his closed eyelids. He hears himself babbling some primal language, nonsense syllables straight from the brainstem.
Scully collapses on him and her forehead collides with his nose.
"Fuck!" he yelps, his hands flying up to protect his nose.
"Oh God, I forgot," she says. "Sorry."
"It's a small price to pay." What's a little nasal pain when it's preceded by mind-bending lovemaking?
She rolls off him, his cock slipping from her in the process. Already he misses being inside her. Now that he's visited that glorious place, he wants to return again and again. Buy a season's pass.
Scully curves into his body, warm skin melting into his. They kiss, the first kiss they've shared since all barriers between them were finally shattered.
"Can you believe it?" she whispers.
He tucks some errant strands of damp hair behind her ear. "Took us long enough," he says.
"The first time we met, if we'd known then what we know now..."
He laughs, remembering her eager young face and forthright handshake. "Admit it, Scully, you were hot for me then."
She shakes her head. "Not quite. I'll admit that I found you attractive but you were too good-looking. You were the kind of handsome I was better off avoiding, not to mention my partner."
"So, what changed?" His fingers draw languid circles on her back.
"I don't know. I can't really explain it." Her eyes squeeze shut as if she's trying to dredge up a specific memory. "Gradually I realized that I was in love with you and it was irrevocable. No matter how I tried to rationalize my way out of it, I kept coming to the same conclusion. I loved you and there was nothing I could do about it."
"You make it sound like a bad thing, Scully."
"No, not a bad thing." She kisses him as if trying to reassure him. "Just something that was inevitable. I don't believe in soul mates, or any of that, but something feels predestined about this. Perhaps the hand of God..."
"Perhaps." He doesn't believe in God, at least not in the same way Scully does, but he understands what she means and some part of him agrees with her.
She rests her head against his chest. He takes a deep whiff of the sweetness of her skin and hair.
"I want this to work," he says. "My search for the truth, for my sister, has always been the most important thing in my life. But there's also you, and I..." He doesn't quite know how to fully express what he wants to say. "I want it to be different. Or at least try."
"I know, Mulder. But you know that I want the same things as you."
"I can't give you some of what you want so badly," he says. He pictures a house in the country with a garden. A laughing child with her smile.
"Mulder," she sighs. "What I want is right here. I wouldn't be here if this wasn't what I truly wanted."
He nods.
"Let me put this in terms you might understand." She smiles. "To quote the Rolling Stones, 'You can't always get what you want but if you try hard, you might just get what you need.'"
"You quoted it wrong," he says.
"Whatever. You're the Stones fan, not me."
They both laugh. He'll have to take the classic rock questions in bar trivia.
He finds himself growing sleepy, but unwilling to close his eyes and let slumber take him. This moment is too real, too special to let it fade away so soon.
He remembers their first kiss, tentative under the harsh hospital lights as the world celebrated the new millennium. Sweet, hopeful, with a hint of promise.
It was only a kiss, but this is so much more.
Epilogue:
ATTHS, again. Maybe even two more times.
END
NOTE: As Adrienne so kindly pointed out with screencaps, Scully's bathroom doesn't seem to have a shower rod or a shower curtain. However, thanks to the magic of fanfic, it does now.
This was fun to write. I got to employ some of my favorite fanfic cliches. Next time, it's the FBI Ball!
THANKS: This story is for mack and namarie for coming up with ATTHS, which makes me laugh at least daily, and for Plausible Deniability (wherever he may be) because I can't write smut without thinking about him, hoping he'd like it, and wondering what obscure grammatical errors he'd find while beta reading.
My most gracious thanks to icedteainthebag for beta reading most of this story. She didn't complain once about the egregious amount of typos. Any mistakes you may have found in the twelfth night were not due to her negligence, since she was out of town for the weekend and didn't get a chance to beta. And thanks totree for unofficially betaing. You almost make up for the fact that I skipped typing in high school so many times.
My gratitude to all of you who encouraged me in writing this mini-WIP. Thank you for making me laugh and keeping me going during a few of the busiest weeks of my life.
SUMMARY: It was only a kiss.
RATING: PG-13 for this part.
SPOILERS: No big spoilers. The story takes place in Season 7, between Millennium and Rush.
DISCLAIMER: These characters do not belong to me and no copyright infringement is intended on my part.
WORD COUNT: 19,947 for the whole story
DATE POSTED: June-July 2008
Eleventh:
Shrimp sate with peanut sauce, green papaya salad, tom kha gai soup, chicken larb, pad thai, red curry with tofu. He's ordered too much but one thing he knows for certain is the way to Scully's heart is with Thai food.
She opens her door, wearing low-slung, faded jeans and a black v-neck pullover. She's barefoot.
"I thought you might come to the door wrapped in cellophane with a rose between your teeth," he says.
"And hello to you, too, Mulder." She eyes the brown paper bags he's carrying. "What do you have there?"
"Something edible."
"In that case, I'll let you in." She ushers him through the door and leads him to the kitchen.
He starts unpacking the various little boxes. "Thai food, courtesy of Siam Kitchen."
"Mmm, Thai food," she says, pulling plates out of the cabinet. "Love it."
"I know, more than anything."
She leans against the countertop. "Well, not more than anything."
"True. You also love the immortal works of Jane Austen, cutting into dead bodies, heels that make you taller, conspiracy theories about nutrition, obscure foreign films with subtitles, stealing my fries when you think I'm not looking and..."
She clamps her hand around his forearm to shut him up. "And you, of course."
"Of course. I'm an eminently loveable guy." He bats his eyelashes at her.
She ignores him. It's what she does.
In the living room, he opens a bottle of wine and watches as she fusses around, banking the fire, changing the CD on the stereo. He pours Riesling into two wine glasses.
"I don't know, Scully. This scene seems awfully familiar. A fire, mood music, a bottle of wine. Are you sure I'm really myself?"
She has the good grace to laugh. "The difference is that the wine is white this time. It goes better with Asian food." She settles next to him on the couch.
He offers her a pair of the chopsticks that came with the order.
Scully shakes her head. "The Thais don't commonly use chopsticks, except when eating noodles, which they consider Chinese food. Most use a fork to push food into a spoon, and some use their fingers." She picks up a fork.
Her brain is a wondrous place, its attic crammed with obscure facts and figures. They should get into the bar trivia racket. They'd probably make a fortune in prize money
"Then why do Thai places always give out chopsticks?" he asks.
"Because they think that we don't know any better." She makes a disdainful face.
Watching her eat, really eat, not just pick at a salad without dressing or sip some inexplicable beige organic smoothie, is an incredible turn-on. He remembers the Scully of years ago, chomping on barbequed ribs. But he also understands the health kick she's on these days. Her life is precious and she'll do what it takes, short of quitting her perilous job, to preserve it.
Peanut sauce dribbles down her chin and he wipes it away with his fingers, licks them. Her eyes widen and he notices a flush blooming on her upper chest. MSG or arousal?
She sets her plate down. "I think I'm full," she announces.
"You should be. You ate eighty percent of the food." He scrapes the last of the incendiary red curry from his plate with the side of his fork.
Scully clears the dishes to the kitchen and reappears in the living room, looking shy and roguish at the same time. "I'm all sticky. I have curry and peanut sauce up to my elbows. I think I'll take a quick shower."
He settles back on the couch. "Take your time, Scully. The fire is entertainment enough for me."
"I've been thinking about what you said the other night, Mulder. It's important that we start caring about the environment." The blush on her chest deepens.
He's off the couch like he's been shot out of a cannon.
Scully lights a few votive candles and sets them on the sink and turns off the overhead light. She starts the shower and turns to him. He gathers her in his arms, kissing the top of her head like he sometimes did when everything between them was undefined, up for grabs, easily misinterpreted.
"I didn't think I could be happy," he murmurs.
She lifts her face to him. "I know."
He thinks, I hope this grace period can last a while.
He presses her against the windowsill, sinking into her kisses. Her fingers find the fly of his jeans and before long, he feels them sliding to his feet.
"Naked, now," he hears himself saying. When did he get so bossy?
She fluidly removes her top and drapes it on wood bureau she uses for bathroom storage, her jeans the next to go. Her bra is black and lacy, just as he'd dreamed in the past. With one hand, he unhooks it, a trick he learned his senior year in high school after hours of practice with Stacy Evans in her parents' basement. Scully laughs as he dangles the bra on one finger and gives it a jaunty twirl before allowing it to land on the pile of clothes on the bureau. He slides off her panties, their lace matching her bra, and he feels her shiver.
They step into the shower, the hot water raining down on them. She tilts her head back and lets the spray catch her face and hair. He stands back and watches. Naked, wet Scully, wearing nothing but her cross necklace and the mole above her lip. Dreams do come true, once in a while. "I never thought I'd get to see this," he says.
"But you have. Remember the decontamination shower?" Something unreadable passes on her face.
"That was different." It feels like a century ago.
"You were peeking, Mulder." She sneaks around him to give him access to the water.
"Of course I was. I'm only human. But I didn't get to see much. This is much better." He flicks water at her.
She squeezes herbal-scented shower gel in her hands and works up lather. "Yes, it is." She rubs the suds all over his body. His chest, his back, his buttocks, his thighs. He kisses her, hard and long.
His foot suddenly gives way on the bottom of the tub and he has to grab the shower rod to keep from falling.
"Be careful. It's a slippery tub," she says.
Her fingers are slippery, too, as they work their soapy way around his cock and perform the same maddening dance he'd been introduced to the other night in the hotel room.
"You have to stop that," he gasps. "I can't guarantee..."
"Shut up," she says with a smile.
He attempts to distract himself by applying his attention to her breasts, those lovely, wet breasts, the nipples stiffening under his fingers and between his lips. But it's not helpful when she moans, a low moan that sends sparks down his spine. He's heard her moan in pain, in terror, in grief, but her moan of delight is something still new and astonishing to behold.
Abruptly, she removes her hand from him and he stifles a dismayed sound. She reaches around the shower curtain and her hand returns with a bath towel. She folds it and places it on the bottom of the bathtub.
He squints in confusion. What is she doing? Realization dawns on him as she sinks to her knees on the towel.
"My knees aren't what they used to be," she says, blinking innocently.
Oh, God, she's really going to do it, right here in the shower. Scully is much, much naughtier than he ever gave her credit for. In his fantasies, she is often a slightly reluctant partner, shy and having to be coaxed a bit into participating in certain acts.
So much for his fantasies. Reality is infinitely better, he thinks, as she takes him into the warmth of her mouth, her tongue lazily tracing the length of him.
He looks down at her and their eyes meet, blue and hazel. Electric. He almost loses his balance again, his knees turned to jelly. He grips her slippery shoulders to keep steady.
The suction of her mouth, her soft lips wrapped around him, her tongue swirling around the head of his cock, it's all too much. Oh, Scully, I never knew you at all, he thinks. I seriously underestimated you. You're more woman than I could ever have imagined.
When he comes, it's not in shame or in horror, but in utter joy. He grips her shoulders so hard he's probably leaving fingertip bruises.
She rests her head for a moment on his thigh and then lifts it to smile at him. He helps her up from the towel.
He feels light-headed, drained, gone, but he also feels like he's alive for the first time in years.
He kisses her. "I don't know how to thank you."
"Jewelry is always an appropriate thank-you gift. Emeralds go nicely with my hair."
He laughs.
"I feel sufficiently clean," she says. "Perhaps we should find a more comfortable place. My bed, say?"
"You're always thinking, Scully," he says.
She climbs out of the tub and through the gap in the curtain he watches her towel off. He squeezes out the wet towel from the bottom of the tub and hands it to her.
"Are you planning to get out any time soon?" she says, her hands on her hips.
"Just a second. I want to rinse this soap off."
He turns to face the showerhead, sugarplums dancing in his head. He doesn't notice when his foot slips on the porcelain, not until he finds himself falling towards the shower.
This will not end well, he thinks.
His face crashes into the faucet and he comes down hard on one knee. He screams loud enough to be heard in Baltimore.
The shower curtain rings screech across the metal rod. "Mulder, what happened?" he hears her say.
His hands are covering his face. He takes them away only to see them covered with his blood. "I think I fell," he gasps. Fucking hell, it hurts. His forehead, his nose, his knee.
Scully snaps into doctor mode. "Can you get up if I give you a hand?"
He's not sure but he just wants to get the hell out of this tub.
"Carefully," she says, offering her hand. Somehow he manages to climb out with her support and he hobbles to the toilet seat.
Scully carefully dabs at his forehead and nose with a damp washcloth. "You've got a pretty big gash near your hairline," she says. She touches his nose and he yelps. "And you might have broken your nose."
That's all his schnozz needs--a fracture to give it even more character.
She hands him a wad of tissues to catch the blood from his nose and presses the washcloth to his forehead to staunch the bleeding. "I think you're going to need stitches."
He's had enough stitches in his head this year, thank you very much. And no more emergency rooms. It hasn't even been two weeks since his last visit. "Can't you stitch me up?" he asks.
"Mulder, you want me to suture you with my sewing needle?"
"It beats the ER." His nose is throbbing in time to his heartbeat.
"I don't even have a sewing needle, even if I would do such a thing, which I wouldn't. Do you think you can walk?"
He extends his leg. The knee is sore but it doesn't seem like anything serious. He nods.
"Good. Then let's try to get you dressed."
Date night at the Georgetown University Hospital emergency room. He should get one of those punch cards--ten visits to the ER and your eleventh is free.
By the time he hobbles back into the waiting room, an ice pack pressed to his nose, it's past two in the morning. Scully is curled up in a chair, dozing. He hates to wake her, but she's his ride home. He touches her shoulder and she starts awake.
"Mulder. How are you?" She yawns.
He touches the gauze on his forehead. "The bad news is six stitches. The good news is my nose isn't broken and the knee seems fine, just bruised. My basketball career isn't over yet."
She sighs. "I'm so sorry." She's been apologizing all night.
"It's not your fault. Now we know better than to..."
She stands up. There are dark circles under her eyes. "Let's get you home."
By the time they reach his apartment, he's woozy with exhaustion and some Percocet Scully produced from her purse, leftovers from a root canal. The doctor only gave him ibuprofen, which did nothing for the pain. His nose is numb from the ice and he has to breathe through his mouth.
She has to lead him like a stumble drunk up the sidewalk to his building, into the elevator, and down the hallway. He never realized how long that hall was before this, but it's endless.
In his bedroom, she helps him out of his jeans and into bed. His bed, so soft and accommodating. Why does he ever leave it?
"Will you stay with me tonight?" he says, slurring his words.
"Of course." Scully finds one of his t-shirts in his dresser and slips it on, climbs in bed next to him. She turns the lamp off and he's grateful for her warm presence in the dark.
"Ice pack," she reminds him, and places it on his nose. "Are you still in a lot of pain?"
"Not really. I...I feel like I did about a dozen bong hits. We should put some Grateful Dead on."
She laughs, snuggling up to him and stroking his hair. "I hate the Grateful Dead."
"Yeah, you would." He shuts his eyes, imagining multicolored dancing bears.
"Hey, Scully?" he asks.
"Yes?"
"Tell me a bedtime story?"
He hears a soft laugh. "A bedtime story? What kind?"
"Anything. Just a story." He wants to hear the sound of her voice.
She kisses his cheek. Her soft voice floats in the darkness of the room. "Once upon a time, there was a man who believed in aliens. He lived in a dungeon far beneath the earth. One day, a woman came to the dungeon. He thought she was there to debunk his work and betray him to the evil king, but she was really there to rescue him..."
He's asleep before she finishes the sentence.
Twelfth:
He looks like he's been in a bar fight. There's the gauze bandage taped to his forehead and the livid bruises surrounding it. His nose has swollen to Karl Malden proportions. Worse yet, he feels like he's been in a bar fight and the other guy won.
It's impressive what a bathtub spigot can do to a face. Even Alex Krycek has never managed to beat him up this badly.
He limps to the kitchen on his sore knee. He'll need a lot of coffee to be able to dress and drive to the office. He finds that Scully has thoughtfully left him a half a pot of coffee. A yellow Post-It note is stuck to the top of the Mr. Coffee. It reads: "Don't even think about it, Mulder."
He finds his cell phone in the living room. She answers on the third ring, her greeting crisp and professional.
"Don't even think about what?" he asks, all innocence.
"Coming to work."
"I've shown up in much worse shape, Scully."
"Yes, and you were completely useless. So stay home for a day and heal."
He sighs. Does she think that all of a sudden he's turned into a delicate flower? "But--"
"But nothing. This time I'll write the report and swing by tonight for you to take a look at it before we submit it to Skinner."
"Fine, you win."
"I always do." She hangs up the phone as punctuation. He's sure that on the other end, she's smirking in triumph.
It's probably for the best. He can't breathe out of one nostril and his knee is shouting in pain. He pops several Percocet and washes them down with Folger's and toast.
He'll spend the day on the couch. His comfy, trusted couch. He can catch up on his reading. He hasn't read the last few issues of "The Journal of Paranormal Research." The day won't be wasted after all.
Before he has a chance to open the first issue, he's fast asleep.
He dreams that he's walking down the corridors of the Bureau with Scully. They're on their way to meet with Skinner. He notices that for some reason she's wearing a blue bikini with white polka dots, but she doesn't seem to find anything amiss. The top of the bikini has come untied and he worries that the entire top might fall off her body. He wants to tie it the strings for her, but he's afraid she'll get angry at him if he does that. They're partners, friends, but he knows better than to cross the line.
With a start, he wakes to the sound of his front door opening. Where's his gun? He'll shoot the bastard breaking in. He relaxes when he hears high heels on the wood floor. It's Scully.
The sky has gone dark outside the living room window. He must have slept all day. He feels dizzy, sweaty, achy, hungry and cotton-mouthed all at the same time. What an attractive sight he must be.
Scully clicks her way into the living room, wearing a severe gray pantsuit and black heels. Her face softens from its official business mask when she spots him lying on the couch.
"Are you all right?" she asks, bending to kiss him on the top of his head. "I tried calling you a few times but you didn't pick up."
"I think I was sleeping."
"If you're not sure, you must have taken more Percocet. How many did you take?"
"Three, I think."
Her eyebrows arch. "On an empty stomach? No wonder you slept all day."
"I had some toast," he offers.
"I brought dinner," she says. She helps him off the couch.
A pee, a tooth-brushing, and a glass of water later and he's as almost good as new. Actually, he still feels like hammered shit, but at least the hammered shit feels a bit fresher.
Scully's setting out takeout containers on the coffee table. "I got some stuff at Whole Foods," she says.
He sits down, trying not to wince at the stiffness in his knee. "I'm not much of a fan of Whole Foods. I don't like my food to be any more than half."
"There's a red velvet cupcake for you if you're a good boy," she says, offering him a plate with a stuffed chicken breast, roasted potatoes and glazed carrots.
He bites back a ribald comment. With Scully, he has to use such comments sparingly to avoid the dreaded eye-roll.
After they eat, she peels back the bandage on his forehead to peer at his stitches. "Looks good," she comments. "No sign of infection. I'm going to remove this, but don't get the sutures wet."
"But I want to take a shower," he protests. He's actively aware that he smells like he's been stewing in his own juices.
"I would think you'd want to avoid showers for a while." She grins. Scully looks slightly goofy when she shows her teeth while smiling. He loves that.
"I stink, Scully," he says.
"Then take a bath."
"Don't you think baths are kind of girlie?"
"What are you, thirteen? Insecure in your burgeoning masculinity? I'll run a bath for you." She clears the dishes off the table.
Some minutes later, she leads him to the bathroom. It's rainforest steamy from the hot water in the tub.
She kisses him gently, careful to not bump his puffy nose.
"You'd better get out of here," he says. "Danger lurks for us in bathrooms."
"I think we'll be fine. Just watch your feet." She helps him out of his t-shirt.
He steps in the tub with the utmost caution, holding her hand as he sinks into the water.
"Perfect. Now, don't drown," she warns, turning to leave the bathroom.
"Hey, Scully, don't you want to save the Earth again?"
She spins on her heel and eyes the rather small tub. "I believe the probability of further injury would rise exponentially if I got in there with you."
He groans in disappointment.
"But I'll wash your back if you'd like," she offers.
He leans back into the hot water, which soothes his sore muscles. His legs are too long to comfortably fit in the tub, but it still feels good. Scully removes her suit jacket and rolls her blouse up to the elbows.
"What would you do if I splashed you?" he asks.
"Make you pay the dry cleaning bill."
"It's a small price to pay." He splashes her, just a little bit, the water hitting the sleeve of her blouse.
"Mulder, do you want to be washed or not?" She kicks off her pumps and kneels on the bathmat.
He closes his eyes and lets her rub Irish Springs bubbles all over his skin. These are the hands that have shot a gun and cut into the dead. Once, they even caught a baby as it emerged into the world. With him her hands are still strong, but they're tender. They fit perfectly on his body.
Her lips brush his and he opens her mouth to her, to accept her long, slow kisses. When he opens his eyes, she's looking at him and smiling shyly.
If only he could see her smile more often.
Hard times are ahead. He can feel it in his bones like the ache of the ankle he broke as a teenager when it's about to rain. But he doesn't want to dwell on those dark thoughts. Not now. Better they grab some sweetness while they can.
"I think I'm sufficiently clean," he says. "Do you have a Hoyer lift handy get me out of this tub?"
Scully the literalist shakes her head and offers her hand instead. It's enough.
She dries him off and wraps the towel around his waist, fastening it with a neat tuck.
"I don't know what I'd do without you," he says.
"I wonder that myself, Mulder."
She helps him shamble his way to the bedroom, where he crumples on the bed, the towel coming off his body. He watches through half-mast eyes as she unbuttons her blouse and slides it from her body. She wiggles out of her trousers and joins him on the bed, clad only in her white bra and panties.
Her hot breath is on his cheek. "Mulder, do you think...?" Her voice trails off and her eyes shut.
"Do I think what?"
"If we're careful, I mean really careful not to hurt you, do you think we could...?" She takes a deep breath, trailing her fingernails on his arm.
"Make love?" he asks, nerves sparking alive with something other than aches and pains.
Her eyes open and there's mischief in them. "Yes." She kisses him on the cheek with warm lips.
"We can try," he says. "But I'm kind of scared. Bad things seem to happen every time we try. Skinner calls, I come too soon, I become intimately involved with your bathtub faucet..."
Scully laughs. "Or I get stung by a bee. Hell, if we actually do manage to have sex, it'll probably cause colonization."
"There's no one I'd rather be in an alien reeducation camp with than you, Scully."
She straddles his body. "I think that the worst that can happen is we break the bed." She unfastens her bra and lets it fall to the sheets.
"We can only hope," he says, his fingers reacquainting themselves with the curves of her breasts. "Besides, I've been thinking about getting a new bed."
Time shatters into brilliant fragments as they kiss. The faint cinnamon taste of her lipstick. The silk of her breasts against his chest. His cock stiffening in her hand. The curve of her hips under his fingers. He can feel no pain whatsoever.
His fingers make their way to her panties and find her clit under the silky material. She moans in pleasure as he carefully circles it. "Get those damned things off," he mutters.
"They're history," she says, removing them unceremoniously.
There now. Skin to skin. Nothing between them. His heart beats faster.
With a lazy, almost nonchalant motion, she lifts her hips and he feels himself sliding into her, guided by her hand.
Oh.
For perhaps the first time in his life, he's speechless.
She smiles at him. This is it. They're here, finally. It's too much. He shuts his eyes, afraid that if he looks at her, he'll come. He wants this to last forever, this joining with her.
"Squeeze my arm if you get too close," she whispers in his ear. He almost laughs. That's Scully, always with a plan.
Slowly, she begins to move. Fuck coming too soon, he has to see this, the beauty of her face and body as she rocks on him, moving his cock in and out of her depths. Her eyes are half-shut, red-gold lashes fanned. She's biting her lower lip as if she's concentrating on a particularly perplexing piece of evidence.
He gives her arm a squeeze. Scully giggles, a real-life, genuine giggle in bed. He'd gladly endure another six stitches in his forehead to hear that again.
"I just need a second," he gasps.
She kisses him, her hands cupping his face tenderly. "I'm so damn happy," she whispers. He has to grasp the sheets in his sweaty hands to keep himself in check.
Okay, deep breath, he thinks. You can do this, you can maintain your control. Be a Zen monk. Practice the art of detachment from worldly things.
But she's started up again and she's doing some kind of roll and twitch of her hips that might just drive him to the madhouse for a lifetime of snug white jackets and regular doses of Thorazine. All he can do is wrap his arms around her and hang on as she rides him hard. It's not up to him anymore.
"Oh, Mulder," she groans. The cross on her necklace tickles his chest, along with the ends of her hair.
Surely he's dreaming this. Because, really, what has he done to deserve this bliss?
"Oh, Mulder," he hears her say again. Her voice is low and scratchy. "I'm...I'm..." She suddenly stops and her entire body shudders, her muscles tightening around his cock. He can't take his eyes off her; he's afraid to blink and miss a second of this singular experience, watching Scully come.
She takes his hand and places it on her sticky chest. He feels the rapid fluttering of her heartbeat. "This is what you do to me, Mulder," she says.
She raises her hips until only the very tip of him is inside her. She pauses and grins down at him. Tease.
"More," he manages to wheeze.
"So impatient," she says.
And then he's inside her again, buried to the hilt. His brain screams to his nerves: all systems are GO!
He's coming, he's coming inside Scully, and he might actually be seeing the cliched fireworks, brilliantly colored explosions behind his closed eyelids. He hears himself babbling some primal language, nonsense syllables straight from the brainstem.
Scully collapses on him and her forehead collides with his nose.
"Fuck!" he yelps, his hands flying up to protect his nose.
"Oh God, I forgot," she says. "Sorry."
"It's a small price to pay." What's a little nasal pain when it's preceded by mind-bending lovemaking?
She rolls off him, his cock slipping from her in the process. Already he misses being inside her. Now that he's visited that glorious place, he wants to return again and again. Buy a season's pass.
Scully curves into his body, warm skin melting into his. They kiss, the first kiss they've shared since all barriers between them were finally shattered.
"Can you believe it?" she whispers.
He tucks some errant strands of damp hair behind her ear. "Took us long enough," he says.
"The first time we met, if we'd known then what we know now..."
He laughs, remembering her eager young face and forthright handshake. "Admit it, Scully, you were hot for me then."
She shakes her head. "Not quite. I'll admit that I found you attractive but you were too good-looking. You were the kind of handsome I was better off avoiding, not to mention my partner."
"So, what changed?" His fingers draw languid circles on her back.
"I don't know. I can't really explain it." Her eyes squeeze shut as if she's trying to dredge up a specific memory. "Gradually I realized that I was in love with you and it was irrevocable. No matter how I tried to rationalize my way out of it, I kept coming to the same conclusion. I loved you and there was nothing I could do about it."
"You make it sound like a bad thing, Scully."
"No, not a bad thing." She kisses him as if trying to reassure him. "Just something that was inevitable. I don't believe in soul mates, or any of that, but something feels predestined about this. Perhaps the hand of God..."
"Perhaps." He doesn't believe in God, at least not in the same way Scully does, but he understands what she means and some part of him agrees with her.
She rests her head against his chest. He takes a deep whiff of the sweetness of her skin and hair.
"I want this to work," he says. "My search for the truth, for my sister, has always been the most important thing in my life. But there's also you, and I..." He doesn't quite know how to fully express what he wants to say. "I want it to be different. Or at least try."
"I know, Mulder. But you know that I want the same things as you."
"I can't give you some of what you want so badly," he says. He pictures a house in the country with a garden. A laughing child with her smile.
"Mulder," she sighs. "What I want is right here. I wouldn't be here if this wasn't what I truly wanted."
He nods.
"Let me put this in terms you might understand." She smiles. "To quote the Rolling Stones, 'You can't always get what you want but if you try hard, you might just get what you need.'"
"You quoted it wrong," he says.
"Whatever. You're the Stones fan, not me."
They both laugh. He'll have to take the classic rock questions in bar trivia.
He finds himself growing sleepy, but unwilling to close his eyes and let slumber take him. This moment is too real, too special to let it fade away so soon.
He remembers their first kiss, tentative under the harsh hospital lights as the world celebrated the new millennium. Sweet, hopeful, with a hint of promise.
It was only a kiss, but this is so much more.
Epilogue:
ATTHS, again. Maybe even two more times.
END
NOTE: As Adrienne so kindly pointed out with screencaps, Scully's bathroom doesn't seem to have a shower rod or a shower curtain. However, thanks to the magic of fanfic, it does now.
This was fun to write. I got to employ some of my favorite fanfic cliches. Next time, it's the FBI Ball!
THANKS: This story is for mack and namarie for coming up with ATTHS, which makes me laugh at least daily, and for Plausible Deniability (wherever he may be) because I can't write smut without thinking about him, hoping he'd like it, and wondering what obscure grammatical errors he'd find while beta reading.
My most gracious thanks to icedteainthebag for beta reading most of this story. She didn't complain once about the egregious amount of typos. Any mistakes you may have found in the twelfth night were not due to her negligence, since she was out of town for the weekend and didn't get a chance to beta. And thanks totree for unofficially betaing. You almost make up for the fact that I skipped typing in high school so many times.
My gratitude to all of you who encouraged me in writing this mini-WIP. Thank you for making me laugh and keeping me going during a few of the busiest weeks of my life.